Vegan Week, Day 3: This Is What Creams Are Made Of

What's the best thing to do on a cold, autumn Wednesday night? Fill a bag with fresh produce and head to your friend's house to drink wine, build a fire and read about your astonishingly correct astrological signs while making dinner.

I showed up at Jennifer's door with a bag full of asparagus, onions, celery and cashews (more on that later) and she was just getting started on an amazing BBQ "chik'n" pizza on Trader Joe's whole wheat crust. To go with it, I sauteed and simmered my cold, black little heart out on this amazing Cream of Asparagus soup from Tal Ronnen.

How do you get a cream o-anything in a vegan lifestyle? Cashews, baby. Before you turn up your omnivorous nose, try it. I triple-dog dare ya. (no dogs were harmed in the making of that sentence.

Cream of Asparagus Soup
from A Conscious Cook

Salt
3 Tb extra-virgin olive oil
1 large bunch asparagus, ends trimmed,cut into 2-inch pieces
2 stalks celery, choped
1 large onion, chopped
2 quarts vegetable broth
1 bay leaf
1 cup cashew cream*
Freshly ground black pepper
2 cups fresh baby spinach


1. Place a large stockpot over medium heat. Sprinkle bottom with a pinch of salt and heat for 1 minute. Add oil and heat for 30 seconds, being careful not to let it smoke.

2. Add asparagus, celeery and onion and saute for 6-10 minutes, until celery is just soft. Add stock and bay leaf, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. Add cashew cream and simmer for an additional 10 minutes. Remove and discard bay leaf, season to taste with salt and pepper.

3. Working in batches, pour soup into a food processor and puree. Add spinach to last batch and blend to smooth. Pour soup into large bowl and stir in spinach batch. Ladle into bowls.

*Cashew Cream: put 2 cups of cashews into a bowl and cover with cold water. Refrigerate overnight covered. Drain cashes and rinse under cold water. Place in blender with enough fresh cold water to cover them by an inch. Blend on high for several minutes until very smooth.

Vegan Week, Day 2

Happy Veterans Day, folks! Hopefully this day finds you not sitting in an office in front of a computer, but rather sitting here, reading I Pray to Gouda. I mean, you don't have anything else to do today, right?

Day 2 of this vegan life showed me a tempting side to life. Case in point:

My lunch at an all-staff meeting: salad, steamed veggies and bread.

The luscious, chocolatey, cream cheese-filled dessert that accompanied the other staff members' lunch.

I did not cave! Instead, I ate a Clif Z-bar, Chocolate Brownie flavor to be exact. These are almost as tasty as the Mojo bars from Clif, and the perfect size if you are searching for a sweet, midday snack. My ability to avoid those little chocolate pieces of heaven at lunch meant I needed to have a great dinner. Enter Tal Ronnen's Lemon Asparagus Risotto from his new vegan cookbook, A Conscious Cook. Stephanie and Ally put aside meat and cheese to imbibe in this vegan dinner. Thanks, girls!

Lemon Asparagus Risotto

from The Conscious Cook

Sea Salt

1 lb asparagus, cut into 1" pieces

ground black pepper

3 Tb olive oil

3 shallots, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 cups Arborio rice

1 cup plus a splash of dry white wine

6 cups vegetable stock (optional: boil the broth with 3-4 dried porcini mushrooms. This will give it a meatier flavor)

Grated zest of 3 Meyer lemons

Juice of 2 Meyer lemons

1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted.

1. Fill small pot with water. Add 1 tsp salt and bring to a boil. Blanch the asparagus in boiling water for 1 minute, drain and season with salt and pepper.

2. Place large saute pan with steep sides over medium heat. Sprinkle bottom with a pinch of salt and heat for 1 minute. Add pinch of salt and rice and saute for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.

3. Add in shallots, onions, lemon juice and wine. Saute until onions are soft.

4. Start adding in the broth, 1 cup at a time. Wait for each cup to be absorbed by the rice prior to adding the next cup. This process will take about 30 minutes (be patient, it's worth it!).

5. Add in lemon zest, a dash of salt and pepper, and top with pine nuts.

Feast of San Gennaro

Head on over to my friend, Sarah's, amazing little blog, The Undercover Caterer, to see the scrump-diddly-umptious dinner we had the pleasure of experiencing on Monday night.

It was in stark contrast to the Chipotle burrito I scarfed down last night while attempting to watch Biggest Loser, write a term paper, and keep Klaster from getting too jealous that a boy was sitting next to me. That dang dog has THE trickiest ways of smuggling himself in the middle of me and whoever else is on my couch.

picture courtesy of Sarah of The Undercover Caterer

Barefoot Bloggers: White Pizza with Arugula and Mango Banana Daiquiris

I'm pretty sure Barefoot Bloggers is going to force me to try things I normally wouldn't (precisely why I joined), because there is no way in hey-ell I would have attempted this pizza otherwise. I HATE making pizzas. It's not that they're difficult. It's that I really, a whole lotta-like, love pizza when it's ordered and shows up on my doorstep. Was this pizza worth it? It was worth trying. It's a healthy alternative to the Meat Lovers situation you find yourself in on a Friday evening, chasing with beer.

Thing is...I like the cheesy, greasy fattiness of chasing cheesy, greasy pizza with beer.

But if you want to lighten things up a bit, I say go for it.* I followed the recipe mostly, but I diverged at some points to throw in some Faith Flair. I tried to get Kim, Tina and Tim to give me their honest opinions - they said they liked it, so I'm going to just have to trust that they weren't feeding me a line.

P.S. The daiquiris were FABULOUS.

*Here's what I don't recommend: staying up until 1:43am afterward, watching an incredibly freaky movie and then lying on a hard sidewalk waiting for a meteor shower to show itself. Just my two cents.

White Pizza with Arugula
adapted from Ina Garten's Back to Basics

For the dough:
1 1/4 cups warm (100 to 110) water
2 packages dry yeast
1 tablespoon honey
Good olive oil
4 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for kneading
Kosher salt
4 cloves garlic, sliced
5 sprigs fresh thyme
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

For the topping:
3 cups grated Italian fontina cheese (8 ounces)
1 1/2 cups grated fresh mozzarella cheese (7 ounces)
11 ounces creamy goat cheese
Grape tomatoes (I used mini-heirloom), halved

For the vinaigrette:
1/2 cup good olive oil
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
Freshly ground black pepper
8 ounces baby arugula
1 lemon, sliced

Mix the dough.

Combine the water, yeast, honey and 3 tablespoons of olive oil in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. When the yeast is dissolved, add 3 cups of flour, then 2 teaspoons salt, and mix on medium-low speed. While mixing, add up to 1 more cup of flour, or just enough to make a soft dough. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes until smooth, sprinkling it with the flour as necessary to keep it from sticking to the bowl.


Knead by hand.

When the dough is ready, turn it out onto a floured board and knead it by hand a dozen times. It should be smooth and elastic.

Let it rise.

Place the dough in a well-oiled bowl and turn it to cover it lightly with oil. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and allow the dough to rise at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Make garlic oil.

Place 1/2 cup of olive oil, the garlic, thyme and red pepper flakes in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over low heat. Cook for 10 minutes, making sure the garlic doesn't burn. Set aside.
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

Dump the dough onto a board . Place the dough on sheet pans lined with parchment paper and cover them with a damp towel. Allow the dough to rest for 10 minutes. Use immediately, or refrigerate for up to 4 hours.

Stretch the dough.

Press and stretch dough into a large circle and place sheet pan lined with parchment paper. (If you've chilled the dough, take it out of the refrigerator approximately 30 minutes ahead to let it come to room temperature.)

Top the dough.

Brush the pizzas with the garlic oil, and sprinkle each one liberally with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the pizzas evenly with fontina, mozzarella and goat cheese. Drizzle each pizza with 1 tablespoon more of the garlic oil and bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until the crusts are crisp and the cheeses begin to brown.

Make the vinaigrette.

Meanwhile, whisk together 1/2 cup of olive oil, the lemon juice, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper.

Add the greens.

When the pizzas are done, place the arugula in a large bowl and toss with just enough lemon vinaigrette to moisten. Place a large bunch of arugula on each pizza and a slice of lemon and serve immediately.

Mango Banana Daiquiris
from Ina Garten

2 cups chopped ripe mango (1 to 2 mangos, peeled and seeded)
1 ripe banana, chopped
1/2 cup fresh squeezed lime juice (4 limes)
1/4 cup sugar syrup*
1 1/4 cups dark rum
Mango slices, for serving

Place the mango, banana, lime juice, sugar syrup, and rum in a blender and process until smooth. Add 2 cups of ice and process again until smooth and thick. Serve ice-cold in highball glasses with the mango slices.

*To make simple syrup, heat 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water in a small saucepan until the sugar dissolves. Chill.

Good Friends + Pasta + Wine = Happiness.

I swear, I have some of the greatest friends in the world. How it happened is beyond me. Erin is a girl I met in college. We couldn't be more different. She's a smart, cute lil rocker chick who is currently sporting some awesome purple streaks in her raven-black hair, tattooed feet and a band boyfriend. I was a preppy, khaki-wearing sorority Republican girl, naive to a fault. Six years later, Erin made me this incredibly yummy meal and we reminisced over a lovely V. Sattui merlot that resulted in a super-sweet headache for both parties the following day.

This isn't your every day pasta cheese bake. Snippets of lemon and spinach come through, and the dish is perfected with sliced almonds. Yum!

Baked Pasta Casserole
courtesy of 101 Cookbooks

Extra virgin olive oil
3/4 lb whole wheat pasta shells
sea salt
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
4 cups well-chopped spinach
1 1/2 cups sliced almonds
Zest of 2 lemons
8 oz mozzarella

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter a large casserole dish. Cook pasta, toss with olive oil.

In the meantime, heat a bit of olive oil in a skillet over medium-high. Saute the onions with a couple pinches of salt for a few minutes (or if you want a bit more depth of flavor until caramelized). Stir in garlic. Stir in spinach. Cook for just about 20 seconds, until the spinach collapses a bit. Remove from heat and stir in 1 cup of the almonds and 1/2 of the zest. Add to pasta and stir and stir - mixing extremely well, a minute or so.

Now sprinkle the bottom of baking dish with the rest of the zest. Add a layer of the pasta to the bottom of the baking pan, now sprinkle with some of the cheese, add more pasta, then more cheese. Finish with a layer of cheese. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes or until cheese on top is bubbly and melty. Serve sprinkled with the remaining almonds.

Food Post from Paris: Potato Gnocchi with Thyme Vinaigrette and Lemon Cashew Cream Sauce

Paris is such a Faith city. Bustling streets, apartment buildings from the 1500s, a cozy cafe on every corner and people who are more interested in enjoying each hour of every day rather than rushing through it. I came to Paris not for the Tour de Eiffel, the Louvre or Versaille, but to experience the culture of a people who sit and enjoy an espresso or fromage with friends without worrying about tight schedules or how much money they put in the meter. And I've been able to get my full experience in this amazing French city.

So here I sit in my apartment in Les Halles, doing one of my fave things - food blogging!

This is a recipe my friend, Jennifer and I made on New Year's Eve. Jennifer is vegan, and I must say that the sound of this recipe sent a tiny shiver down my spine when I first heard of it. Amazingly, however, this gnocchi dish is phenomenal. It's a little bit of work, but fun to do and even more fun to eat.

Potato Gnocchi with Thyme Vinaigrette and Lemon Cashew Cream Sauce
Serves 2-3

For Gnocchi:

2 Russet Potatoes (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 Scant Cup Bread Flour (No salt!)

For Thyme Vinaigrette

2 Tbs Fresh Thyme, leaves only
1-2 Pinches Salt, to taste
4 Tbs Olive Oil
1 tsp White Wine Vinegar

For Lemon Cashew Cream

1 Cup Water
1 1/4 Cups Roasted, Salted Cashews (or raw)
Zest of 1 Lemon
1/2-1 tsp Lemon Juice

For the specific cooking directions, head on over to Vegan YumYum...

Dairy-Free Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

Sounds weird, doesn't it? Can't say I blame you. Eric and I were pretty wary of this idea, ourselves. A cake with no eggs? Or milk? That's just crazy. But a good friend stopped by for a Christmas Day visit and it was time to get creative. And while creativity doesn't always come easily to me, it's always a fun adventure.

And oh, SO good. This recipe was passed on to me by a friend of mine who explained it as a cake often served during the Depression era due to ingredient rationing. We Americans sometimes forget how easy we have it these days!

Put a little spice in your life and shake things up a bit. Try out this vegan and delectable recipe. Your friends will never know.

Vegan Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Icing

Mix until smooth:

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup strong, brewed coffee
2 teaspoons vanilla

Into the wet ingredients, fold the following:

1 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar

Quickly mix in 2 teaspoons of vinegar and pour into a greased and floured cake pan. Bake for at least 25 minutes at 375 degrees.When the cake is cool, frost with:

Peanut Butter Frosting

Mix together at medium speed:

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup non-dairy margarine
2 cups confectioners sugar (or more if you like it sweeter)
pinch salt
4 teaspoons soy milk
1 oz dark chocolate, chopped or shaved